After being ripped up and worked on for months, two popular parking lots in downtown Alexandria will soon be back in business.

The Traveler’s Inn lot between 5th and 6th Avenue East was already being used Monday while work was finishing up.

Workers still plan to put a wear course on the lot this year, stripe it and pave the alley by Sixth Avenue Wine and Ale, according to Tim Schoonhoven, city engineer.

The other lot, by Coldwell Banker on 7th Avenue, isn’t quite as far along but is expected to make big strides this week. It will receive a base course this year and a wear course next year, Schoonhoven said.

There are also some patches of road to complete on Hawthorne Street, and 7th and 5th Avenue. The sidewalk work along 6th Avenue should also wrap up this week.

“There are some places here and there to get to,” Schoonhoven said. “But for the most part, everything should be buttoned up by the end of this week, if the weather holds.”

Other finishing touches include work on the planters in the lots and adding street lights.

When the project is fully completed next year and landscaping is finished, the lots will look similar to the Fillmore Street parking lot behind Raaper’s, Schoonhoven said.

Mark Lee Excavating is doing the work. It submitted the low bids for the projects, which have a combined cost of nearly $350,000.

Al Edenloff is the news and opinion page editor for the Echo Press. He was born in Alexandria and lived most of his childhood in Parkers Prairie. He graduated with honors from Moorhead State University with a degree in mass communications, print journalism. He interned at the Echo Press in the summer of 1983 and was hired a year later as a sports reporter. He also worked as a news reporter/photographer. Al is a four-time winner of the Minnesota Newspaper Association's Herman Roe Award, which honors excellence in editorial writing.